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I wish we’d just all turn into crabs already… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
Are we sure they didn’t die out 5 times too and more just got dropped off from the horseshoe crab planet?
Yes, but the price of perfection is stopping the evolution.
When horseshoe crabs come up, I always try to mention that they are harvested (and usually killed) for their blood in the most unethical way possible. They basically pump it directly from their (version of) hearts, and as long as they’re “alive” when they throw them back in the water, it’s counted as ethical harvesting. Usually, they just die a few hours/days later from having their hearts punctured and much less blood available than they’d like.
Also, their blood is wholly unnecessary for medical usage. Medical companies use the amebocyte lysate in their blood to detect endotoxins, but it’s pretty cheap and easy to synthesize amebocyte lysate in a lab without involving crabs. It is only being held back by the FDA because, before we could synthesize it, the blood made harvesters wealthy enough to lobby for the FDA to refuse approval of the synthetic version when it came along so they can keep pumping that blue gold. Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong. I’m not an expert.
As your annoying communist I’ll also point out that if you’re a scientist developing novel methods to detect endotoxins your grant funding is currently being eviscerated by the US federal government and you’re likely to find a much more lucrative career path working for a pharmaceutical company that lacks your research ethics. And if you make it up to the admin level you can go lobby the government too!
I’m not an expert either
95% of all life dies
Horseshoe crabs:
Blue bloods really are superior
It’s always used as a specific fact for horseshoe crabs but hemocyanin is very common in the hemolymph/circulatory systems of mollusks and arthropods. Most regular crabs, squid and octopus, clams, spiders, and shrimp. They just don’t make good blood farms like horseshoe crabs do and don’t have Limulus Amebocyte Lysate.
[Anthropocene extinction intensifies]
You could’ve been cool like that horshoe crab. But you just had to be difficult and be a smart monkey.
Seems like they finally met their match though.
